The uneven handling by Topps of a team’s name – SABR’s Baseball Cards Research Committee

 A rendering of the Colt revolver with “Colts” wafting out of the smoking barrel may very well be seen totally on playing cards that featured pitchers winding up or in a set place, as in 1963’s Russ Kemmerer (#338). Even then, it tends to be a bit obscured. In any case, the identify on the house jerseys — .45s was solely on the hats — gave Topps some cowl for shortening the workforce’s identify. Simply town’s identify appeared on street jerseys.

Within the 1962 set, all however one of many gamers had been hatless, and supervisor Harry Craft’s former workforce (the Cubs, the place he coached) was airbrushed out on his hat. The hatless approach was Topps’ routine manner of depicting traded gamers. Houston had no MLB workforce in 1961, in fact. So solely Joe Amalfitano had a card quantity excessive sufficient to seem late within the ’62 set (#456) with a “.45s” on his hat, which Houston used, dwelling and away.

As with all the opposite gamers and the supervisor, Amalfitano was recognized as enjoying for the “Houston Colts,” besides #23 Norm Larker, whose workforce was simply “Houston C.”

Admittedly, area for workforce names on the ’62 set was tight, as evidenced by the “Phila. Phils” on these gamers’playing cards. But Craft’s #12 card had room for “Houston Colts mgr.”

Topps photographs most frequently are taken the season earlier than or in spring coaching, so the 1962 set had no workforce card of the inaugural Houston entry. Topps used “Houston Colt .45s” on its 1963 workforce card (sans emblem), however omitted the interval earlier than 45s on the primary eight Houston participant playing cards. How Topps recognized the workforce identify on particular person playing cards was all around the ballpark.

The primary three 1963 Houston gamers within the set performed for “Hstn. Colt 45s.” Two gamers traded there within the low season had been now on the “H. Colt 45s. One other obtained “Houston Colt 45s” on his card. All had no interval earlier than 45s. Beginning with Carl Warwick’s #333, Topps started utilizing the extra correct “.45s” on all however two of the final 9 Houston playing cards.

Seven of the set’s four-headed rookie playing cards featured Houston gamers. They didn’t escape the inconsistency. The primary 4 rookies had been “Colt 45s” with no interval. The final three, which included #544 with Rusty Staub, grew to become “H. Colt 45s.”     

Was there technique to this insanity?

Did Topps attempt to restrict the foreign money of the smoking-gun jerseys?  Though I may discover no modern explanations, a number of Twenty first-century internet posts point out considerations concerning the .45s’ identify after the November 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. That clearly had no impression on the ’63 set, however Houston was inexplicably lacking from workforce playing cards within the 1964 set.

 The frequent use of a shortened workforce identify in 1962 and ’64, the failure to make use of the workforce emblem on the workforce and supervisor’s playing cards in ’63 and the lacking workforce card in ’64 would make it appear as if Topps had some hesitation concerning the identify and picture.

The ’64 playing cards emphasised a participant’s workforce throughout the highest. Simply as “WHITE SOX,” or “ATHLETICS,” managed to suit, Topps had room to make use of “COLT .45s,” as awkward because it might need seemed. But the Houston playing cards stated the gamers had been simply “COLTS.” Maybe the designers determined a interval and a lower-case “s” in .45s wouldn’t work.

When the enlargement workforce’s identify was introduced on March 7, 1961, it was simply “Colts.” A naming contest in Houston newspapers drew about 12,000 entries. The winner, a person named William Irving Neder, made clear the identify referred to the gun. “The Colt .45 has received the West and can win the Nationwide League,” he wrote in his entry. However after months of confusion concerning the identify, the workforce introduced on November 27, 1961, that “.45s” was formally being added.

“We felt that the mixed names made it clear we’re speaking about weapons and never the younger horse,” Houston vp George Kirksey instructed reporters. No surprise Topps was not sure what to do.

Within the 1963 set, Houston’s dwelling uniform jerseys had been seen extra typically on its gamers’ playing cards than on these of 17 different groups. Solely the Yankees and Braves participant had been proven with identifiable jerseys as typically because the Colt .45s’ eight.

This, in fact, depended largely on the place the photographs had been taken. The entire 1963 Houston gamers with seen jerseys had been in dwelling whites. The entire 1963 Purple Sox and White Sox gamers in torso photographs had been pictured in street uniforms, as had been all however one of many Angels, Cubs, Dodgers and Orioles.

Within the 1964 set, 5 Houston gamers in identifiable jerseys had been pictured in away uniforms whereas six had been in dwelling jersey with the smoking gun not less than partially seen. In distinction, the Mets had no playing cards with dwelling jerseys seen and 6 different groups had one every (most likely shot in one other season). So there’s no definitive proof that Topps went out of its strategy to keep away from the gun jerseys.        

The choose ditches “Colt .45s”

Choose Roy M. Hofheinz, the principal determine within the first possession group, reportedly by no means preferred “Colt .45s,” though he made the gamers put on custom-fitted cowboy fits on the street in the beginning of the primary season. He named a bunch of younger feminine ushers the “Set off-ettes.” 

Hofheinz was behind the development of Houston’s sorely wanted domed stadium, the promise of which is what received town the workforce that joined the Nationwide League together with the Mets. The non permanent dwelling was known as Colt Stadium – singular — a mosquito-infested mess. Insect repellent was offered at concession stands.

It took some time for Hofheinz to show overtly in opposition to the .45s’ moniker, however he famously did so when the Colt Firearms Co., which had given the workforce the fitting to make use of the identify of its weapon, began demanding a share of the workforce’s merchandise gross sales.

With Houston being the house of the command middle for the nation’s area program, Hofheinz at first favored “Stars” as the brand new identify, however on Dec. 1, 1964, he determined the workforce would henceforth be often known as the “Astros.”  The brand new stadium, as a consequence of open for 1965 season, was to be often known as the “Astrodome.”

So Topps needed to shift gears shortly to start producing the primary playing cards of its 1965 set. The hatless photographs of Houston gamers bailed Topps out of the .45s’ hat mess, however the card-maker wasn’t within the clear but.

With a ’65 design that known as for a pennant with the workforce’s identify, not its metropolis, on each participant’s card, Topps needed to squeeze “Houston” on the pennant used for the playing cards of 4 soon-to-be-Astros and on the now sought-after rookie card of future Corridor-of-Famer Joe Morgan (and, on the identical #16, Sonny Jackson). Many of the ’65 Astros seem hatless, regardless that they had been with the workforce in 1964.

The primary man recognized on a Topps card (#163) as an Astro was outfielder Al Spangler. The cardboard, with a pennant that has “Houston” in smaller letters above “Astros,” seems nicely into the second collection. That actually will need to have made the printing presses cease.

“The identify and insignia will assist dispel the picture of Texas as a land of cowboys and Indians, and it behooves each citizen on this space to name consideration to the twentieth century elements of Texas and Houston,” Hofheinz instructed the media.

As soon as once more, the 1965 Topps set had no Houston workforce card. The corporate apparently wasn’t inclined to run a photograph picturing males within the uniforms with a defunct workforce identify, not to mention an outline of a smoking weapon, nevertheless small. Anyway, it wasn’t till 1966 and ’67 that Topps produced playing cards with gamers in Astros’ uniforms.